The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

The Etymologicon is a completely unauthorized guide to the strange underpinnings of the English language. It explains: How you get from “gruntled” to “disgruntled”; why you are absolutely right to believe that your meager salary barely covers “money for salt”; how the biggest chain of coffee shops in the world (hint: Seattle) connects to whaling in Nantucket; and what precisely the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening.

What Einstein Didn't Know: Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions

How does soap know what's dirt? How do magnets work? Why do ice cubes crackle in your glass? And how can you keep them quiet? These are questions that torment us all. Now Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, provides definitive - and amazingly simple - explanations for the mysteries of everyday life.

Food: A Cultural Culinary History

Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

Reporter Sam Kean reveals the periodic table as it’s never been seen before. Not only is it one of man's crowning scientific achievements, it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.

The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks

Every great drink starts with a plant. Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley. Gin was born from a conifer shrub when medieval physicians boiled juniper berries with wine to treat stomach pain. The Drunken Botanist uncovers the surprising botanical history and fascinating science and chemistry of over 150 plants, flowers, trees, and fruits (and even a few fungi).

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

In this irreverent and illuminating audiobook, acclaimed writer and scientist Leonard Mlodinow shows us how randomness, chance, and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives, and how we misunderstand the significance of everything from a casual conversation to a major financial setback. As a result, successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear and obvious causes, when in actuality they are more profoundly influenced by chance.

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent of the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there were a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last?

Culinary Reactions: The Everyday Chemistry of Cooking

When you're cooking, you're a chemist! Every time you follow or modify a recipe you are experimenting with acids and bases, emulsions and suspensions, gels and foams. In your kitchen you denature proteins, crystallize compounds, react enzymes with substrates, and nurture desired microbial life while suppressing harmful microbes. And unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses.

Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics

Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans - predictable, error-prone individuals. Misbehaving is his arresting, frequently hilarious account of the struggle to bring an academic discipline back down to earth - and change the way we think about economics, ourselves, and our world.

Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), credited as the inspiration for radio, robots, and even radar, has been called the patron saint of modern electricity. Based on original material and previously unavailable documents, this acclaimed book is the definitive biography of the man considered by many to be the founding father of modern electrical technology.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

Throughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period. A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola.

In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives

Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes listeners inside Google headquarters - the Googleplex - to explain how Google works.

Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution

Origins explains the soul-stirring leaps in our understanding of the cosmos. From the first image of a galaxy birth to Spirit rover's exploration of Mars, to the discovery of water on one of Jupiter's moons, coauthors Neil deGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith conduct a galvanizing tour of the cosmos with clarity and exuberance.

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal

Best-selling author Mary Roach returns with a new adventure to the invisible realm we carry around inside. Roach takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: The questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts?

The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, The Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World

The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with natures most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world.

The Divine Comedy

One of the greatest works in literature, Dante's story-poem is an allegory that represents mankind as it exposes itself, by its merits or demerits, to the rewards or the punishments of justice. A single listen will reveal Dante's visual imagination and uncanny power to make the spiritual visible.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: and Other Clinical Tales

Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating

Why do we consume 35 percent more food when eating with one other person, and 75 percent more when dining with three? How do we explain the fact that people who like strong coffee drink more of it under bright lighting? And why does green ketchup just not work? The answer is gastrophysics, the new area of sensory science pioneered by Oxford professor Charles Spence.

Drinking Water: A History

When you turn on the tap or twist the cap, you might not give a second thought to where your drinking water comes from. But how it gets from the ground to your glass is far more complex than you might think. Is it safe to drink tap water? Should you feel guilty buying bottled water? Is your water vulnerable to terrorist attacks? With springs running dry and reservoirs emptying, where is your water going to come from in the future? In Drinking Water, Duke professor James Salzman shows how drinking water highlights the most pressing issues of our time.

Adventures in Human Being

We have a lifetime's association with our bodies, but for many of us they remain uncharted territory. In Adventures in Human Being, Gavin Francis leads the listener on a journey through health and illness, offering insights on everything from the ribbed surface of the brain to the secret workings of the heart and the womb; from the pulse of life at the wrist to the unique engineering of the foot.

Why is glass see-through? What makes elastic stretchy? Why does a paper clip bend? These are the sorts of questions that Mark Miodownik is constantly asking himself. A globally renowned materials scientist, Miodownik has spent his life exploring objects as ordinary as an envelope and as unexpected as concrete cloth, uncovering the fascinating secrets that hold together our physical world.

A Little History of Philosophy

Philosophy begins with questions about the nature of reality and how we should live. These were the concerns of Socrates, who spent his days in the ancient Athenian marketplace asking awkward questions, disconcerting the people he met by showing them how little they genuinely understood. This engaging book introduces the great thinkers in Western philosophy and explores their most compelling ideas about the world and how best to live in it.

Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters; From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima

From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters.

The Hunt for Vulcan: …And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe

For more than 50 years, the world's top scientists searched for the "missing" planet Vulcan, whose existence was mandated by Isaac Newton's theories of gravity. Countless hours were spent on the hunt for the elusive orb, and some of the era's most skilled astronomers even claimed to have found it. There was just one problem: It was never there.

Publisher's Summary

Why is red meat red? How do they decaffeinate coffee? Do you wish you understood the science of food but don't want to plow through dry, technical books? In What Einstein Told His Cook, University of Pittsburgh chemistry professor emeritus and award-winning Washington Post food columnist Robert L. Wolke provides reliable and witty explanations for your most burning food questions, while debunking misconceptions and helping you interpret confusing advertising and labeling. A finalist for both the James Beard Foundation and IACP Awards for best food reference, What Einstein Told His Cook engages cooks and chemists alike.

If you're a chef, you'll like it... if you're a scientist, you'll like it... if you're a curious person, you'll like it... if you're a food chemist or have done and enjoyed any food chemistry course, you'll LOVE it! I blame the latter fact as to why I took to this title so much. I really enjoyed this title and everything about it, it had a little biology, some biochemistry and a whole lot of chemistry. The bonus in this was the reference material (recipe guide).

The narration of the title was done well enough, not extraordinary but I do think that to narrate anything such as this it would be hard to truly blow me away. It was done very well though, enough to hold your attention for the entire title itself. The narrator didn't droll on and on, but engaged you well enough to keep you interested throughout the title.

The knowledge gained through listening this entire title was well received. As someone who did Food Chem in college I do remember a lot of the concepts that were mentioned. It also was not done in a way that requires any previous knowledge regarding chemistry or any basic science to really understand. All you need is an open mind and you should be able to follow pretty well. I thought the cook book that was provided would have been a bit more relevant other than giving you some treats to make but it was a nice addition. If you actually intend to be a Chef, be in the Food Industry or do any sort of Food Chemistry course I would HIGHLY recommend this book because it provides some very useful information in a understanding form.

If you ever wondered about how your microwave works or what the best way to liberate juice from a lemon check this book out. I learned way more that I planned on about what is in my kitchen and how I've been using it wrong. :)

What Einstein told his cook is a great book if you have any background in science and would like to bridge some (or a lot) of gaps to cooking. Even if you don't have a big background in science or chemistry, I believe if you're some what intelligible you can still pick up on a lot of whats covered and comprehend it (though, you may have to look a few things up depending on your background). It is very interesting and it helps you avoid common techniques or procedures that are taught and used in the kitchen frequently which are almost completely baseless which shows the lack of education and knowledge some cooks actually have of cooking.

You don't have to have taken organic chemistry to think this book is great, but if you do have a background in chemistry/basic science you will probably really enjoy this book. Even if you don't have a background, the author is good about keeping it on a simple level, and explains concepts before discussing them further.

I'm just getting into cooking regularly and have found that this should be an essential read/listen for any one that enjoys or is beginning to enjoy cooking.

If you are like me, a person who loves to cook and loves science, then this book is for you. What happens, at the molecular level, when you make caramelized onions? What is the difference between mineral salt and sea salt really (there is none), and does it matter which one I chose (no)? What is the fastest way to thaw something? Can you fry an egg on the sidewalk?

Read this book and you shall find answers to these, and many other questions. You will also gain a much better understanding of what it is you are doing when you are cooking. What is a carbohydrate and what is the difference between carbohydrates and sugars? How can you measure the calories in food? Does it matter when you put the salt in the water when you boil pasta? Acquiring this knowledge comes at the expense of being called a nerd, but there is nothing wrong with being a nerd.

The author deserves special praise for his fearless criticism of some BS products that are being aggressively advertised. For example, salt is salt wherever it may come from. If you want to pay a hundred times more for Himalayan salt that has some dirt in it, then be my guest, but know that you will only get a negligible amount of minerals (or perhaps pollutants is more correct term). To ingest a significant amount of minerals by eating salt you would have to eat several kilos which, needless to say, would not be very healthy.

Overall a good and funny book with a good mix of anecdotes and science to back up the different points made. Recommend it.

Ok, this is a bit like a textbook but if you are really into the science of food or just wonder about some if the myths/facts about what you eat this is a really good listen.Look, it is not a story. If you are looking for a story you really need to look elsewhere. If you love to cook you may find this book as fascinating as I did.

What Einstein Told His Cook serves up a smorgasbord of kitchen science in bite-sized, easily digestible pieces. The author explains the workings of everyday ingredients and equipment used in food preparation and WHY they work the way they do. It is not only an entertaining read, it is a great reference book! A compendium of culinary information, it can be consumed as a meal or simply nibbled upon from time to time with no loss of flavor.

What was one of the most memorable moments of What Einstein Told His Cook?

Not only is it good information, it's a great resource in resolving kitchen arguments! Most memorable for me was the moment of victory I enjoyed when I read the official word of a scientist why it's not good to put my Calphalon pot in the dishwasher...even if that means my husband won't wash it...

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Alton Brown's alter ego

Any additional comments?

This book is enjoyable even for the non-cook; it gives concise, understandable information about the foods we eat every day.

If you like Alton Brown's "Good Eats" or "Iron Chef," this is your book. My husband and I enjoyed it on a car trip. Then, my in-laws listened and share it with the grandkids one chapter at a time on the way home from school. The science has captured the interest of our 9 year old nephew.

This is a terrible choice for audio! It is a reference book, plain and simple - as a printed book, you can look up whatever you need to know, when you need to know it. That doesn't work with audio, and since there is no story it's a major yawn. Imagine listening to the dictionary...

Chemistry intimidates me, cooking comforts me, and information fascinates me...and every chapter explains in easy listening terminology the myths and myth-takes about things we prepare to feed ourselves and our families. There are many good tips on what's fact and what's fiction in products, as well as resources for further information.An included PDF provides the details you might want to write down if you hear them on the Southbound 405 heading toward Orange County, CA on the day before the 4th of July.